


Go Out With a Bang

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 11:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20470025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Bulma is a college student living on her own away from her family's wealth.  Vegeta is a boxer feeling stuck in his life.  They meet and decide to dance around their feelings for one another for years





	Go Out With a Bang

**Author's Note:**

> this is technically a prequel to [fade out with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17331932/chapters/40775888) but you definitely don't have to read that to get this as this obviously takes place long before the boys are born, but they ARE the same timeline

The grocery list looks daunting, but Bulma’s put it off for too long that it’s only her own fault. She’s been scraping by the past week or so and she’s out of toilet paper and bread and crap. The thought of going out into the chilly fall evening isn’t pleasant but she doesn’t have any choice.

Or maybe she does.

It’s late and she’s cold so she can’t say for sure, but this is all a choice. Bulma thinks it’s why she feels fake. If she wanted to, she can go back home Henry the IV-style and be welcomed back in the graces of her rich family. Her experiment in living independently being nothing more extreme than her various science projects back in school. She has the choice, but she doesn’t take it. Instead she lives in her tiny apartment with a coin-operated radiator. It’s above a bowling alley that is never open and what she believes is a front for the mafia, but that’s okay because the sounds don’t keep her up, at least, and any gangsters mind their own business.

Part of her likes it. The part that’s occupied with school and working at an all-night diner, doing her homework and readings in unoccupied booths while the other third shift waitress and short order cook offer unhelpful advice. Bulma likes not relying on her father’s credit cards. She’s always had her freedom. Her parents never really cared what she did because their trust in her is so deep. Dumb decision, that, considering some of her behaviors as a teen.

But that doesn’t matter and she’s putting off the inevitable.

It isn’t so cold that she needs a coat but it’s still a pain having to go out. She checks her purse and counts the crumpled dollars to see what remained of her tips. Most everything goes to school and rent and bills, but she has to keep something for living. A selfish part of her wants to grab the ancient, heavy landline phone that came with her apartment to call Yamcha and have him buy her groceries. What good was a boyfriend if he didn’t spend money on you, after all? But that’s cruel. She does care about him. He’s sweet and smoking hot. She knows she’s lucked out meeting him in her one of her pre-req classes last fall.

Bulma takes out the paltry pile of singles and smooths them out into a sort of stack. She folds them in half and sticks them back in her purse. It should hopefully cover everything. She’s had the embarrassment of having to hand items back at the register a few times now. The cashier never judges her, she’s sure, but she feels it.

It’s not quite dusk out when she leaves her apartment and the corner store isn’t far. That’s the only good thing about her apartment’s location. She can get necessities and sometimes even a pack of cigarettes when the patrons at the diner are feeling particularly generous with their tips.

There’s a small stack of baskets near the door, none of which bear the name of the corner store. They’re all stolen from big chain grocery stores and are mismatched in color. Bulma grabs one that originally called a Stop’n’Shop home and takes to the aisles. She’s thought ahead and listed her items from most important to least important. Toilet paper and shampoo, then milk and bread. If there’s anything left, she can get some instant meal for dinner, maybe. Peak luxury.

“I’m lucky I’m so fucking good at math,” she mumbles to herself, putting the loaf of bread into her basket.

A guy a little ways down the aisle looks up, having heard her. He gives her a strange look, which she fields by crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out and walking away.

There’s enough leftover from her tips for a jar of peanut butter, which she thinks will pair well with the homemade blackberry jelly a customer gave her last week in lieu of a tip. At the counter, she proudly pays for her items and puts the coins handed back to her into her purse. It’s not ideal because now she has no cash and effectively no money until she gets her paycheck in two day’s time, but she won’t starve or be unable to wipe her ass so she counts it as a victory.

The guy who gave her a look is behind her and she steps aside so he can buy his package of beef jerky and forty of beer. It doesn’t occur to her until she does that this guy is short, probably around as tall as she is, and she’s only five four. She wants to comment on it, but he looks distinctly pissed off about something and Bulma is certain he already thinks she’s insane. Instead she replaces her basket and leaves with her plastic bag bursting with necessities.

Back in her apartment, she puts the necessary items where they go and feels accomplished. Her sad little apartment always feels slightly less so when she’s gone shopping. If she had more money, she could try furnishing it, but she doesn’t have much. A couch she bought on a street corner and a table and chairs that came with the apartment. Her mattress on the floor in the sole bedroom. Some decor from her freshman year in the dorms adds a bit of flavor but nearly every day Bulma contemplates taking it down. It feels too desperate, but the bare walls just make her depressed.

She makes herself a sandwich and sits down with her physics texts, ready to settle in for the night. A part of her feels sad. She’s twenty years old and should be out living the life but, here she is. Her schedule both in classes and at work leaves her with little time to devote to a social life. Now and then Yamcha drags her to a party hosted by one of his friend’s on the college baseball team and she uses it as an excuse for free booze that helps dull the boring conversation.

Feeling a bit wistful, she looks out of her window at the gathering night and sighs.

\--

_ Where’re the fucking keys? _

Vegeta feels around the door of the darkened gym, trying not to draw attention to himself. He’s certain that the spare key is around here. He couldn’t find the normal ring of keys in the garage so he’s scrounging here like a fucking raccoon, looking for the key to the front door.

“Vegeta, stand up.”

He looks up from where he’s crouching and can just make out the shape of his father in the gloom. The scant light of a streetlight catches the metal on the ring of keys as he spins it on his finger.

“You took it.”

“I knew you’d come to get it and you need a rest day.”

Vegeta scowls and gets to his feet, picking up his bag from the corner store as he does. He’s felt weird in his skin all day, like his veins are electrified. He’d wanted to try and burn off this odd, frantic energy, but his father has put a stop to it. Maybe he’s right--he needs a rest day, especially with a match in two days, but he needs it.

“I’m not a child.”

“You’re my child.”

His father walks up and Vegeta stares at him, shifts his bag to his other hand. He can’t argue with that.

“Come back to the house. I made dinner.”

Vegeta falls in step with him, feeling short and not unlike a child being chastised. The first one he can’t help. Both he and his brother got their height, or lack thereof, from his mother’s side of the family.

The house is only a short walk from the boxing gym his father owns with his best friend, the one where Vegeta spent his childhood. Watching his father train until it was his turn.

“What’d you make?”

“Baked ziti.”

He thinks of the beer and sad bag of jerky in his bag and is relieved. By all accounts, he’s twenty-one and should be living on his own but his mom wouldn’t have it. She says that families in Europe all live in multi-generation houses so why can’t they? She can’t bear to have her firstborn leave and, honestly, he doesn’t mind having disposable income and being in close proximity to the gym. Plus,  _ someone _ has to take his brother to his doctor’s appointments when his parents are working.

“Found him,” his father announces once they walk in.

“Gym?” Uncle Nappa asks.

“Where else?”

Vegeta scowls at his own predictability as he dumps his bag on the counter and takes his seat at the table.

“Wash your hands,  _ cucciolo,” _ his mother says automatically, before his ass is even fully in his seat.

“I’m twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one with dirty hands. Go wash them.”

For the second time, he’s made to feel like a child and begins to rethink his stance on staying here. With a slight snarl, he gets back to his feet and washes his hands in the sink before plopping back down. Normal dinner conversation ensues, everyone trying to talk over one another. Vegeta keeps quiet, concentrating more on shoveling ziti into his face. While he does, he watches his mother talking about how she told the new director at the theatre where she acts to fuck off when he suggested she was getting too old to perform. Watches his father and Uncle Nappa listen. He knows the story there. His father and Nappa were best friends who met Argulia Insalata while she was playing Adelaide in  _ Guys and Dolls _ and both fell in love with her. His father was the more handsome and charming one who wooed her right away, but apparently there was some love triangle bullshit until it all worked out with no residual bitterness. Supposedly.

But he’s also just cynical, especially in his teen years when things with his father were the most fraught. Wanting to throw it back in his face, but he didn’t. Mostly for Uncle Nappa, then, but for his father in the end. It’s a complicated thing to navigate, even now.

“Tarble, you’re barely eating. What’s wrong,  _ mi tesoro? _ You should be celebrating.” His mother nudges him and beams broadly. “Tarble got his license today.”

Vegeta grunts. “About time.”

His brother turned sixteen three months ago but has only just now gotten his license. He doesn’t look happy, though, staring down into his plate that’s still mostly full. Vegeta frowns. Sometimes he has little appetite due to whatever is being affected by his chronic illness, but he feels like it’s something else.

Tarble glances up, face drawn and morose.

“You okay?” Uncle Nappa asks, voice gruff.

A small shrug and then he sighs downwards. Vegeta feels a flare of agitation as if he’s milking it, but Tarble’s never been the type.

“I...have something to say,” he says quietly, face down again and speaking to his pasta.

“What is it?” his mother asks.

“I’m…” He looks distressed and licks his lips. “Gay.”

The word settles over the table and Vegeta fights the urge to just shrug and go back to eating his dinner. His mother puts her hand over her heart.

“Baby...you’re being safe, right?”

The fear is in her words, now, and he thinks of all her friends she’s spoken about in the theatre world who are sick. Of the funerals she’s gone to recently. He screws his mouth to the side. Right. Tarble goes bright red.

“Ma!” he yelps. “I’m not even...I haven’t...but I mean...I will be?”

She exhales and resumes eating dinner. Vegeta flicks his eyes to his father, waiting for his reaction. He’d seen it coming.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” his father asks.

“No.” Tarble shakes his head.

“When you do, invite him to dinner,” he says.

“Make sure he’s a good, Italian boy,” Uncle Nappa chimes in.

Conversation resumes after that, the moment over. Tarble looks relieved and goes back to eating his dinner. Vegeta glances at him and waits for Tarble to look at him. He gives him a thumbs up and then goes back to eating. He doesn’t fuck with words, because he knows his brother doesn’t need them.

“Pass the salad,” he says gruffly.

\--

The diner is nearly empty. The only patron is sitting at the counter, drinking his coffee and minding his business. Bulma takes this opportunity to fling herself into one of the plastiform booths with her textbooks to try and get some reading in. She’s ahead in most of her classes, but it doesn’t hurt to be ahead of being ahead. It’ll make it somewhat dull, being prepared and knowing everything, but the alternative is the boredom of waiting to get to this material. Part of her doesn’t even want to bother with college, wants to just try and get by on her own smarts, but she’s certain that in this day and age, no one would be wowed by her intellect. They would just look at her lack of degree and young age and laugh her out of the lab.

So she studies. She studies and she does her coursework and works and that’s her life. She gave up riches for this. Independence. A crappy, molded plastic booth that’s making her ass go numb as she powers through her calculus textbook.

“God, I hate math.”

Bulma turns her neck a little to look at her fellow graveyard server, kneeling in the booth behind her and leaning over the back of it. Like Bulma, she’s dressed in a deeply unflattering mustard yellow uniform. Bulma hates her in particular because it’s made of a thick, porous fabric that makes her stink and the length is all wrong. It hits a bit too much above the knee and too low on the thighs in an odd, non-length that looks good on no one. Cheelai fares worse since she’s shorter, with the skirt hitting the middle of her knee and making her look even tinier than she is.

“That’s why you study...underwater basket weaving or whatever.”

She scoffs. “I’m an art student!”

“Same difference.”

Cheelai isn’t deterred and Bulma takes what’s offered because, other than Yamcha, she’s the closest she has to having a friend right now. She used to have friends all the time in high school. Not real friends, but friends she could go shopping with and gossip with and commit acts of petty theft for the thrill, even though none of them had to worry about money. Bulma cringes a bit, unconsciously, at her teen self. Has it only been a couple years since high school? She feels so changed. Maybe more mature. Maybe her crappy apartment builds character. Maybe.

“Speaking of which, I’m having another pottery class for extra credit if you want to come. I got an okay turnout last time, but--”

Cheelai studies pottery and sculpting at a tiny liberal arts college. She has a bowl the other girl made her that she eats her cereal out of it and, truthfully, it’s one of her favorite possessions. A beautiful shade of blue and hefty enough to make it feel like whatever she’s eating has some kind of merit. Meaning.

“I can’t afford it,” Bulma says, cutting her off.

A sigh. “I told you, it’s free.”

“I don’t have time.” She changes it without a thought.

She appreciates Cheelai’s talent, but she has zero desire to get her hands all gross in clay and try to work a blob on a spinning wheel into a vase or bowl. She knows where her talents lie and they aren’t in the arts.

“Okay, fine, but we should hang out some time outside of...here.” She gestures around the diner.

Bulma twists her lips. That’s true. She  _ wants _ to have more of a social life that isn’t a bunch of losers on Yamcha’s baseball team.

“We’re both off Saturday,” Cheelai continues, “I worked it out with Lemo.”

Bulma spares a glance at the order window where she can just make out the form of their short order cook and scheduling manager.

“Oh...kay?”

Cheelai grins, brushing some of her short, bleached hair out of her eyes. “So, I told you about that guy, right?”

“Yes?”

Bulma thinks she remembers it, vaguely. The guy who showed up to her last pottery class.

“So he’s a boxer,” she continues, “and he’s performing in a match on Saturday. And I can go and bring two friends.”

Her and Yamcha. He’d be into it but...boxing? Bulma cringes at the thought. Going to Yamcha’s baseball games is annoying enough, and she’s sleeping with him.

“That sounds awful.”

To her surprise, Cheelai nods.

“Oh, it is. He hates it. But it’s something to do.”

That’s true enough, which is probably why Bulma agrees. Getting Yamcha to go along with it is a non-issue. He’d probably love it and she can watch him get cute and excited and take him home and fuck his brains out. Win-win. Except for one thing.

“Wait...so the guy from your pottery class is a boxer?”

When Cheelai told her about this guy she’s been seeing, Bulma pictured a sensitive artist-type with sad eyes and long, lanky limbs. Boxers are supposed to have some kind of bulk, right?

“Yeah, but he doesn’t like it. He’d rather be a sculptor.” Her eyes are alight as she talks about him, hands fluttering near her face. Bulma wonders if she looks like that when she talks about Yamcha, but she doesn’t think so. “I’ve been to his place and seen some of his stuff it’s. It’s really good.”

Okay, now she’s curious about Cheelai’s sensitive jock artist boy. Maybe it’ll be more entertaining. If nothing else, it would break up the monotony of her usual life.

“Can I get more coffee?” the lone patron asks.

Bulma looks up, startled that she has to do her job.

“Uh, sure.”

\--

The match is held at an old warehouse. Someone’s rigged up lights and generators and it’s all Bulma can do to not trip over the thick, orange extension cords snaking all over the floor. A ring has been set up, a spotlight already on it. It’s empty.

“How many matches are tonight?” she asks.

“Just the one,” Cheelai says.

Bulma finds that hard to believe. The place is packed as if it’s a tournament or something. It’s mostly men but some women with big, sprayed hair and tight dresses.

“Oh, wow,” Yamcha says from beside her. His eyes are wide and there’s a giddy smile on his face.

She doesn’t get the excitement but she appreciates how adorable Yamcha looks with this puppy dog look. If he’s looking to get laid later, he’s doing an amazing job.

“Where’s this guy?” she asks.

Cheelai is on her tiptoes, trying in vain to peer up over the heads of the gathering crowd. It’s to no avail, but Bulma could have told her that. She’s got maybe for inches on her and it’s difficult for  _ her _ to see.

“Looking for someone?”

The voice that asks is quiet, almost flat, and Bulma turns expecting to see someone equally diminutive and unassuming is attached to it. Instead, she’s confronted with over six feet of rippling muscles. A man stands behind them, big and strapping, with messy black hair past his shoulders. A scar not dissimilar to the ones whose origins Yamcha will never divulge crisscrosses one cheek. Despite his height and bulk, he’s smiling like Mr. Shyguy. Cheelai turns and her face brightens.

“Broly!”

She launches herself at him and he catches her easily. Bulma figures this must be The Guy. Cheelai’s sensitive jock. He’s got a zip-up jacket on along with lime green and purple shorts.

“Shouldn’t you be, like, warming up?” she asks because why bother with introductions when she can just burst right in.

The guy--Broly?--sets Cheelai down and shrugs.

“Probably. I don’t really care.”

Cheelai bends her finger and digs the knuckle of it into his side. “Yeah, but I don’t wanna see you get hurt, big guy.”

Broly dimples a grin at her and, okay, Bulma has to admit that he’s a certified babe.

“This is my friend Bulma, from work,” she says. “And her boyfriend, Yamcha.”

He shakes their hands and Bulma notices just how big his hands are. He could probably cup Cheelai’s entire ass in one of them. Maybe that’s the appeal. Bulma gives a sideways glance to Yamcha. It isn’t fair to compare them since Yamcha is not without his virtues. He can’t compete with a six-and-a-half foot tall  _ boxer. _

“Go prepare,” Cheelai says. “We’ll cheer you on.”

She presses against him and tilts her face up. Broly responds by dropping a kiss on her lips. They part with a lingering touch and she turns a bright smile towards them.

“Okay, let’s get as close as we can so my short ass can see.”

The three of them move through the crowd, careful of extension cords and bodies. Bulma watches the crowd begin to thicken as they grow closer to the ring. She figures that it has to start soon and she only hopes that she isn’t terminally bored during it.

As they walk, she watches the faces of people with bland interest. No one of interest except for the big hunk of meat with hair longer than Broly’s discreetly taking people’s money and jotting stuff down in a notebook. A bookie? Bulma has zero desire to put in a wager, but the guy makes her pause.

“Don’t bother,” Cheelai says, fingers feather light on her arm.

Yamcha has stopped a pace or two ahead, brows knit. Bulma realizes she’s been caught staring and heat rises to her cheeks.

“What?”

“The guy taking bets,” Cheelai says. “Illegally, by the way. Don’t bother.”

“I wasn’t. I was just. Looking.”

Bulma tries not to look at Yamcha, but she can’t help it and he looks. Upset. Great. The puppy dog look is gone and he just appears peeved.

“I mean, feel free to look.” Cheelai waves a hand. “And Broly says he’s nice, but. That’s about as far as you’ll get. He plays for the other team.”

Bulma gets it immediately, but Yamcha isn’t as quick on the uptake.

“What?”

“He’s gay,” Bulma clarifies.

She sneaks another look at the guy: big, beefy, and wearing a too tight t-shirt. Damn. No wonder Cheelai wanted to come here.

“He’s a friend of Broly’s?”

“Sorta. Everyone knows everyone here,” she says. “It’s. Like a little community. I guess. We don’t hang out. Broly likes us doing our thing away from all of this since he hates boxing so much.”

She can see that. A beacon away from a life you don’t like. It’s romantic, really. Like something out of a movie. There’s folding chairs now, right around the ring and, somehow, Cheelai manages to find three empty ones. There’s two rows of chairs on each side of the square ring, and everything else is standing room.

“Who’s Broly fighting against?”

She doesn’t think it’s the right word to use but the amount of thought that Bulma has ever put into boxing could fit in a thimble. Her knowledge is vast, but sports isn’t a part of it. The only reason she can even contribute when Yamcha’s teammates start talking about baseball is because she saw  _ Stealing Home. _ And even then, she only saw it because Mark Harmon’s a babe.

“His ‘rival.’”

Cheelai uses finger quotes when she says it, which is admittedly interesting.

“What?”

“So, like, Broly’s dad was a boxer, which is why he forced him into it and he had this imagined rivalry with this other boxer even though he never beat him in a match once. So  _ this _ guy has a son, and Broly’s dad is like trying to make their rivalry a Thing, but Broly’s cool with him.”

_ Okay, that’s slightly less interesting. _

Before Bulma can vocalize this, the lights cut out, including the spotlight on over the ring. They come up slowly, filling the cavernous warehouse with dim, yellow lighting. She’s admittedly impressed with the lights considering the mess of cords everywhere.

The spotlight blazes on and, while it was dark, five men had entered the ring. One she assumes is the referee, stands in the center holding a microphone. In the far corner, facing them, is Broly. With him is an older, bearded man who Bulma takes to be his father. His opponent faces away from them, flanked by an impressively tall and large man with a shaved head.

The referee does a little emcee act, talking about the match. The crowd around her begins to yell and cheer. Bulma curls her lip a little and doesn’t bother getting up. She knows it’s rude, but she had nearly forgotten that she was here for a  _ sporting event. _

“In this corner: the quiet man. He’s a gentle giant but, don’t be fooled, he’s currently three and oh--Broly Brassica!”

Broly makes his way towards the center of the ring, miming boxing moves. Bulma notices that he seems to be phoning in the moves. His face looks impassive, almost bored, as he walks up to the referee.

“And in this corner…you all know him. The Italian Stallion, the Prince of Bensonhurst! Vegeta Giardino!”

The crowd lets out a roar of approval. The large man removes the robe Broly’s opponent was wearing and short but broad-shouldered man does the same routine towards the center of the ring. His has a bit more oomph than Broly’s, Bulma mentally notes.

Both men face each other--although that’s not entirely accurate. Broly has at least a foot on this guy.

“Aren’t there, like, classes in boxing?” she asks.

“Weight,” Cheelai clarifies. “And they’re in the same one. Broly’s at the top and Vegeta’s at the bottom. I wondered the same thing, too, when I first met him.”

Bulma recalls what she said earlier. About them not actually being rivals or whatever.

“They’re good?”

She nods. “As good as anyone can be with Vegeta, anyway. He’s kind of a pain in the ass. Broly doesn’t mind him, though.”

She studies him for a moment. For being so short, he’s built as hell. Broad shoulders and a tapered waist. He looks almost impressive. Dumb hair, though, she notes. He turns in profile and she pauses. There’s something familiar about him. She isn’t sure how, but she feels like she’s seen him somewhere before.

Maybe it’s because Yamcha’s still avoiding her gaze after she stared so openly at that gay guy or because she had just been thinking about how cinematic and cute Broly and Cheelai were, but a part of Bulma that isn’t quite so jaded thinks that this might mean something. This familiarity she has with him. Like they’ve met before, but not.

Reality, though, hits her and she resists smacking herself in the forehead. It isn’t fate or serendipity or whatever rose-colored bullshit she let go through her head like she did when she was an idealistic teen fantasizing about the perfect boyfriend.

“He’s the dude from the corner store!” she says out loud.

Yamcha, thankfully hasn’t heard her, but Cheelai does and fixes her with a perplexed look.

“What?”


End file.
